


Missing Software

by TheWorldOutside



Category: Red Dwarf
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-01
Updated: 2015-12-27
Packaged: 2018-04-07 02:40:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 15,866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4246365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheWorldOutside/pseuds/TheWorldOutside
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(Set after 'White Hole')<br/>[Holly/Cat]<br/>After the closure of the white hole, everyone's memory of the previous events have been erased... except for Kryten's. He finds a new way to restore Holly's IQ to 6000, but when the plan backfires, something strange happens to Holly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Command Code Accepted.

**Author's Note:**

> 'Hi! This is my first fanfiction so I would love some feedback about it! It's based on a fan-art done by the wonderful i-fought-space on tumblr!' -Rebekah

 Note: This is the fan-art that started the idea for this fanfiction! (source: i-fought-space.tumblr.com)

 

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

Maybe this isn’t a good idea. I could get into trouble from Mr Rimmer if he finds me in here fiddling with this stuff.   


“What isn’t a good idea, Kryten?”

 

Kryten jumped back and fell into the chair behind him at the  realization he wasn’t alone in the room, and tried to quickly answer the voice which overheard him unintentionally  babbling to himself.

“OH HOLLY! I’m so glad you are okay after yesterday’s… after yesterdays near scare with the dirty sonars! You never know, a speck of dirt from the screens could have traveled into your system and wiped your memory completely! Aren’t you glad I decided to dust them just in time?!”

“What are you talking about Kryten? Nothing happened yesterday with dirty sonar screens, or my computer data! And they call me senile.”

There wasn’t really a problem with a build-up of dust particles; it was just a simple ploy to side track Holly from finding out the real reason why Kryten was there. But an event from the previous day was, in fact, why he was in the computer drive room, looking over Holly’s personality and data files.

 

A ‘White Hole’ had emerged around the same time that the crew were preparing to restore Holly’s IQ back to its former glory, but when the process backfired, leaving her with only 3 minutes of run time, the boys were left to devise a plan to escape impending doom. When they finally sorted out the situation and managed to close the hole, the reverse pull of the hole closing in on itself effected everyone on the ship by erasing the time period spent fixing Holly’s intelligence, removing its existence and memory from their minds. All except Kryten’s.

“Oh, a speck of dirt  must have gotten into your memory banks! Whatever shall we do! I should probably take a look at your hard drives to see if I can fix the problem…” Kryten adjusted himself out of the chair and knelt down onto the floor, searching through his ‘conveniently placed’ toolbox, until he found a small Philips head screwdriver, to unscrew and detach the panel that guarded Holly’s circuit boards, from underneath the main station in the room. 

“What are you trying to do, assassinate me?! HEY DON’T TOUCH ANYTHING! I’m a highly sophisticated and  expensive  piece of equipment you know!” 

 

It was obvious that he wasn’t the first person that had opened the compartment to check its contents were in working order. There was various parts of Holly’s internal contents that had distinctive black marker scribbles  labelled ‘Property of A.J.Rimmer, BSc. SSc.’,  and the odd pile of cigarette ash with a bud or two left behind from when Lister tried to access the computer’s mainframe to  memorise every detail of Kristine  Kochanski’s wild teenage years. Kryten began to slowly pull out long strands of cable, wire, a ping pong ball, a pair of men’s gym socks, the empty VHS case for ‘Jim  Bexley’s Greatest Football Moments' and spare set of fluffy dice.

“Of course not, ma’am. Why would think such a thing of a service  mechanoid ? We are incapable of such aggressive  behaviour and are unable to bring harm to any  lifeforms .”

“I know what else you are incapable of; being able to lie to an ‘incompetent’ 3  million year old computer with a decreased IQ! Are you going to tell me the truth, or will I bring the boys in to our little party we have going on in here?”

“What makes you think I am lying to you?” 

He began to search further within the computer tower to find the RAM and expansion cards that were installed when the JMC crew were all accounted for, with someone who regularly upgraded her service parts. It was quite apparent that nothing new had been integrated in the time it was just the 4 crew members. If it was possible for Holly to lose memory from specks of dust, she wouldn’t be able to remember a single ounce of information by now with the amount of grime Kryten was trying to wipe away to read their labels. He almost felt compelled to get out his feather duster right there and then.

“Your leg starts twitching uncontrollably whenever you try to lie to someone.”

 

Looking back out into the room outside of the internal tower, he could see his leg was twitching and shaking inadvertently out of control, until it finally detached from his hip and started wiggling its way across the floor towards the exit. 

“HEY, YOU GET BACK HERE YOU COWARD!” he called, quickly reversing out from under the table. He stood up with only one leg for support, and hopped his way across the room and grabbed the detached leg before it was able to make a swift exit.

“You think you could just avoid the situation we are in by detaching yourself huh? I wish all of us body parts could just curl into a ball and escape this too, but that’s not how this works!” He quickly detained a firm grip on the uncontrollable limb and reattached it to his hip with a click, but  swivelled around just to be startled by Holly glaring straight at his direction from her screen with a displeased look in her eyes.

“Kryten, you are going to tell me what you are searching my computer tower for, otherwise you will not be allowed to continue with your duties as a service  mechanoid .”

“What do you mean?”

“I will tell the crew that there is to be no more cleaning schedules that you control…”

“Ahh…”

"-every ounce of cleaning will be done by either crew or  scutters-”

“God no!”

“* _whispers_ *-you won’t even be able to do laundry!”

“ NOOOOOO!!! OK I’LL TALK, JUST PLEASE DON’T MAKE THEM DO MY LAUNDRY  SER-VI-CESSSSS !!!”

Holly began to smirk with pleasure as she had finally cracked Kryten enough for him to tell her what he had been doing to her system.

“So… why have you been looking in my hard drives and ripping out bits and bobs from my tower,  hm?”

“{Lie Mode Cancel} Oh Ma’am, it all started yesterday!”

“Yesterday? Kryten I have told you nothing happened…”

“Yes it did! You don’t know what happened because a white hole wiped your memory along with the others! It was supposed to wipe my memory too, but it merely restarted my functions. The event had already been saved from my RAM processes to my internal hard drives.”

“So what happened then?”

 

After a few minutes of explanation, everything from the previous day had suddenly made more sense. Holly had become curious as to why she had no recollection from the day before, or when Kryten had  actually entered the room in fact, since he had been working with her data files from the wee hours of the morning.

“But didn’t you say restoring my IQ didn’t work, and the presence of the white hole was to blame for losing so much of the precious 3 minutes I had left to live?”

“Yes that was the case, but after the first initial hour of being restarted, I found a solution to fixing your senility and restoring you to your former glory.”

“How do you think you can achieve it?”

“Well, like I mentioned before. Essentially it will be the same sort of processes that we initially tried, but without the intelligence compression. The basis of the first attempt was to diminish your run time in order to improve your IQ, therefore making your smarter; but this time it would be a compression of a different force from data files.”

“And what force would that be exactly?”

“I know this will be hard to understand, but your visual presence will need to be switched off for this to work, ma’am.”

Kryten was expecting Holly to be somewhat disappointed at the idea of her visual presence being switched off for the duration of this experiment to see if he could actually improve her IQ once again, but her reaction was somewhat opposite.

“So you and the boys won’t be able to see me… well, my chosen projection, anymore?”

“Precisely.”

“… I guess it’s all in the name of experimentation. We have to take risks. Let’s just hope this plan of yours works. I mean, it’s just my ‘face’ and all. I’ll still be me and will be here, with a voice, if it all goes wrong.” Holly sighed.

“That’s the spirit, Holly! There is just one more thing I need to speak to you about.”

“What’s that?”

“The codes can only be manually adjusted by the computer itself. I cannot enter these codes myself, but I can tell you the sequences verbally and you can enter them into your systems and drives.”

A faint look of fear fell over Holly’s face. What if this didn’t work? What if she got the sequences wrong; entered them upside down or back to front. Would she still exist if something happened?

“Ah… sure. I can do that. When do we start?”

“Now if you would like?”

“Okay… just… just tell me what to do.”

 

For the next hour, they set up do-dads and pulled out various components of the tower and put new things in, sometimes mixing things up with curry container trays by accident, until all of the preparation was complete. All of the drives, disks, codes, sequences and pretty screen savers were fully functional and were ready to be activated.

“Alright. Everything seems to be functioning as it should be. We have tested all the features in situation analysis and there seems to be zero faults. I’ll just go call the other’s in to witness this extraordinary event!”

“NO! I mean… why do they need to be in here?”

Holly wasn’t against the idea of an audience, but she was incredibly nervous. She knew the consequences of what would happen if this went wrong. She would never see her friends again, and they would never see her again; in some ways it was more comforting to her if she remembered what they looked like the last time they all spoke to her, then to witness their shocked looks as her visual being was erased, along with her visual abilities.

“I thought you would like some company, and I am certain they would feel very hurt if I didn’t tell them about this event and just proceeded.”

“Well, think about it Kryten. If this goes wrong, you will only need to wipe my memory again, which is fairly simple, compared to wiping the whole lot of us, which involves heavy medical sedatives for Lister and the Cat if they were here. You don’t want to put them through that again do you?”

“No ma’am. I guess you are right. Oh well, if all goes to plan, they will know straight away; this procedure gives out a short drain of power for it to function, and if I am correct, they are half way through a women’s mud wrestling DVD marathon in the officers lounge that must not be disturbed!”

“So let’s just get on with it. Give me the code commands.”

“Okay then. Let me open the correct system file that holds the command codes… ahh here it is. Are you ready?”

Holly gave an uneasy nod and closed her ‘eyes’ to access her mainframe database.

**Command code input: please enter command sequence**

“[//10GAI-HOLLY] at 21:47 /next: [IMMEDIATE] /interactive: CREW [KRYTEN, LISTER, CAT]”

**Please enter command code.**

“Command code “ norbtmrphs /IMMEDIATE” … no wait, that one’s not right…”

**Command code accepted. Subject Command code “norbtmrphs"- Nano Robotic Metamorphism.**

“NO! NO, THAT’S NOT THE RIGHT ONE HOLLY! I GOT MY NANO ROBOTICS FILE MIXED UP WITH THE SYSTEM FILES, YOU CAN’T USE THAT!”

**Command function activated. Circuitry advancement** **initialized**  .

 

A bright white light from underneath the tower desk burst out and startled Kryten as he stepped back from the buzzing computer, churning all the power from the surrounding sector of the ship. The glow turned from white to a light blue and started to creep up through the power lines and wires behind the monitors and around the walls. Holly’s eyes blared open at the pure velocity of the power sources she had been sucking the ship’s electricity from.

“KRYTEN WHAT IS HAPPENING TO ME?! WHAT WAS THE CODE YOU  INITIALIZED ?!!!”

She began to panic,  realizing that Kryten’s mistake might now formally cost them her life. Even if she was just acomputer on a barren ship, 3 million years away from its destination, she still had to get back to Earth and finish her mission to save not only Lister, but the others too. She didn’t want to die, or anything of that equivalent. Did Silicon Heaven apply to her? Did it exist like Kryten had believed? 

Large bangs of explosions and small sparks of electricity rocketed from her motherboard, and bright flashes of light blurred her vision, but she also noticed her vision was  deteriorating at a rapid speed.

“KRYTEN! KRYTEN! I’M LOSING MY SIGHT AND I THINK MY HEARING… IF YOU'RE STILL THERE, TELL THE OTHER’S… GOODBYE… for me..”

A loud BANG and all of the power to the ship was gone. A glow of warm maroon light was the only thing that lit the room until it to fell dim into the darkness that now swallowed the rest of Red Dwarf.

“HOLLY... Holly, are you ok?”

There was no answer.

“Oh Holly… I am so sorry…”

 

Kryten was left alone sitting in the dark. He was lucky there was a night vision adjustment to his spare set of eyes. It wasn’t until a few minutes later, he started to hear the faint calls of the others coming down the corridor with their flashlights and  bazookaoids ready.

“Kryten, what the  smeg happened here?! What happened to Holly?!” 

“Oh Mr Lister sir! I… I’m…”

“Spit it out  Gimboid!”

“Rimmer, shut it, ok! Kryten, tell us what happened? Why is the power out- why's Holly turned off?” 

“She’s not turned off, sir. She’s dead.”

A silence fell across the dark room. If the lights were on, the only faces that could be seen would be distraught and saddened by the loss of a good friend. Holly was more than just a friend. She was like the  parent of the family they made up. Her senility was no match for their admiration for her, even against all of the jokes. 

 

The first movement was of Cat’s heavy footstep towards the tower as he pointed his flashlight to the monitor which once held Holly’s visual presence. A further step resulted in a small squeal of sound from the floor underneath his Cuban heel. He quickly pounced back, realizing he had stepped in something. Or on something.

“What was that? Cat, did you step on something slimy?”

“No, it felt squidgy, but not slimy. The noise didn’t come from underneath my foot, but to the right of it.”

“Well shine a light at it,  would’ya !”

All at the same time, Cat, Lister and Rimmer shone their torches down to the end of where Cat’s foot had stepped to find… a small hand.

“Who the hell is that?!”

“It looks like a woman’s hand, Lister. But there aren’t any women on the ship anymore.”

“You never know Rimmer, it could be  Kochanski! She could have been created in that power explosion!”

“Sir’s, I don’t think it’s  Kochanski- shine a light on her face.”

Cat moved his light beam down from the hand to the right of the arm, to a beautiful pale face… with blonde hair.

“HOLLY!” Lister cried. “You’re… human?!”

Cat fell back onto the floor in astonishment before crawling over to Holly. Her forehead was covered in a light trail of blood from being thrown from the computer monitor. She was slipping into unconsciousness and didn’t seem to be bothered by the pool of blood down the left side of her face. Cat was adamant on moving her to somewhere safe as he slowly got up and knelt on the floor, gathering her limbs tighter into her slim frame.

“Come on, buds. She needs to go the medical bay- help me lift her!”


	2. Lights!

"Kryten, is she going to be ok?"

"I do believe so. Her vitals match all those of a real human, but she is now classified as a nano-robotic organism. Thankfully she is not the first of her kind; many computers have made the transition from machine to flesh and blood, though I can't say they were all successful."

The design of the medical bay definitely paid homage to the hospitals that were once found on earth; white walls, sterilized floors and bright lights. Holly wasn't used to feeling the weight of her eyes trying to open with blaring lights, or the thumping pain coming from her forehead which had since been stitched up and cleaned from the previous days events. She had been unconscious for almost 24 hours before she finally awoke with a whole new lease of life. She could feel the softness of the cotton sheets, the blanket draped over her new body to keep in the heat (warmth- that was new too), and the strong, pungent smell from a body sitting in a seat to her right. She knew straight away just from the fellow crew members previous remarks, that it must have been Lister.

Holly slowly peeked through her eyelids, and let out a small squeak in anguish as she opened them to quickly, blinded by the brightness. Thankfully, her efforts weren't unnoticed, as the dark figure stretched across to give her some relief in shielding her face with their shadow.

"Hol, are you alright?"

A tiny groan was all she could manage from her new mouth as she lifted her arms to cover her eyes some more.

"Holly? Is it the lights? Would you like me to dim them for you?"

Her head naturally seemed to nod without even thinking about what Kryten meant. The lighting never seemed to bother her that much before, so why was she so sensitive to it now? Kryten dimmed the lights down to a soft glow, giving Holly the chance to finally see the two faces that were standing beside her.

"Kryten? Lister? Oh thank god, I can still speak! And you both can still see me?”

“Yeah, we can still see you, in fact we can see a lot more of you now then before.”

“What do you mean? Did you buy those new monitors for my birthday? Or did you just hose down my old ones like usual?”

Lister gave a disheartening glance towards Kryten as he was walking back to her bed, knowing Holly had no idea about the real 'situation' she was about to come to reality with.

"Hol, have you noticed anything different about yourself? Do you feel... anything at all?"

"No, not really. The lights were hurting my eyes a bit, but it's fine now."

"Computer's can't feel pain, ma'am; how do you think you shielded yourself from the brightness? Look down."

She opened her eyelids just wide enough to peep down past her chest and to her forearms, where her hands were now resting on each side of her new body.

"Well I used my hands of course... wait.. why do I have hands? KryTEN WHY DO I HAVE HANDS?! WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO ME?!"

"Oh no, she might go into shock if she doesn't calm down!"

"WHY... I HAVE LEGS! AND FEET!-" she sits up to run her arms down to her ankles and back to her knees, before moving them to her soft, blushed pink cheeks. "I HAVE A FACE, TOO! WHAT IS HAPPENING?!!!"

"Holly, you must stay calm! You are no longer just a computer, you have a human body now that is susceptible to episodes of shock in periods of high stress and anxiety! If you do not calm down, I will be forced to sedate you again!"

Holly was quickly getting acquainted with the emotional functions of the human body, particularly the lungs, as she began to hyperventilate at the idea of her being in a human body. Lister noticed how panicked she looked as he swiftly lept to the supply cupboard, grabbing a paper bag.

"Here, take this, put it over your mouth and nose and breath deeply in and out into it."

Lister placed the bag in Holly's small hands and closed his own over the top as he helped place it to her face.

"In...... and out.... In... and out...."

After a few repetitive minutes of deep breathing exercises, she finally calmed down and returned to laying down onto the soft, white pillow behind her head.

"Now, I am able to explain how this all happened if you agree you will not get upset or angry."

"I haven't ever experienced a human emotion before, except for what I believe was panic, so I hope this is not the time the others drop by for tea and biscuits!."

"Holly, this is serious; don't you want to know what happened? I know I do!"

"Okay then Kryten. Tell me."

"Each of the command codes that are stored within my hard drives and data files have their own individual identification key making it easier for my CPU to store them correctly. The problem was, my nano-robotics files had almost the exact same key as the command code to restore your IQ, so my system had unknowingly filed it in the same area."

"So you entered the command code for your nanobots instead? What does that have do with her being human?"

"She almost certainly would not have been human if the computer tower hadn't been riddled with organic DNA left behind from the original crew who serviced Holly. Traces of hair, dead skin, even the DNA from one of your old, moldy socks, Mr Lister, are all responsible for turning her into a organic, nano-robotic humanoid!"

Yet again, Holly sat back up on the medical bed with her deep breathing in full motion. She was a human? How could she cope?! It was fairly simple to run a 3 million old mining ship, taking care to not kill the only remaining humanoids, hologram & mechanoid, when she was a highly capable computer who wasn't tied down with the thoughts, feelings and physical existence that humans had. Her only remaining objective in life, was to save these poor guys from anything that space throws at them, and to bring them back to earth. ALIVE. How could she do that as small insignificant human?

"Kryten, a quick word?"

Lister grabbed Kryten back into the dimly lit corner of the room, away from where they assumed Holly couldn't hear their conversation (which turned out not to be true- she was a nano-robotic lifeform, not deaf or blind).

"What do we do, man? We are in some serious trouble here!"

"I don't know why you seem so tense to the subject, she has just merely changed her form to organic, just as humans can change their hairstyle or clothing."

"Yeah but I truly doubt that anyone who goes to bed wearing clothes and wakes up naked, living in a flat alone with the doors deadlocked, is going to take it lightly! I mean, how are we supposed to explain all the aspects of life to her? Like eating curries and drinking lager; that's just our way of life as the simple male species. We have to teach her about the female anatomy too! I know for a fact, I am staying away from that conversation with a 10 foot pole!"

"Don't worry, Mr Lister sir. Leave the conversations about the pain of monthly menstrual cycles, and the complete and utter agony of childbirth that women have to go through, to me!"

At that moment, a loud thump came from behind them as Holly fainted back into the bed sheets from overhearing their 'private' conversation.

“Oh smeg, Kryten! We’ve made her faint again!”

They rushed back over to the bed and fixed Holly’s estranged limbs onto the bed again.

“Oh I’m sorry sir! I’m still getting used to her not being a computer anymore; next time I’ll be more careful and remember to turn on my censorship chip!”

 

* * *

 

 

It was early morning when Holly began to wake up again, but this time she was left alone in the darkness of the medical bay. The guys must have had enough of waiting on her if she was going to be unconscious 99% of the time spent alive as a human. She wasn’t used to not being able to see through the night, unlike when she used her night vision as a computer. Lifting one arm up, she could faintly work out the shape of her petite hand in front of her face, studying her fingers. Was this some sort of joke or a horrible dream? She couldn’t be sure of anything. Looking around her bed, she remembered the ship's voice command system was still functional after the small pockets of conciousness let her hear Cat call for the medi-bay doors to open when they first came through.

"Lights!"

The lights slowly dimmed on, but Holly hadn't noticed that there was new, shadowed figure, sitting in the corner to her left.

" **Ahhhh! Lights!** "

Holly was left sitting again in the dark again, wondering who else was in the room.

"Lights!" she repeated hesitantly.

" **Did you not hear me the first time? I said Lights Off!** "

Yet again, she was stunned.

"Hey, do you mind? I can't see a single thing! Whose there?"

"Okay, okay, 'Lights On' then!"

As the lights finally rose, the shape of the person made more sense, but she was now highly confused as to how the figure managed to get hold of the clothes she was previously wearing.

"Are you happy now? You've got the stupid lights on, can I please go back to my sewing?"

"Cat? What are you doing in here?"

Of all the people that she expected to be keeping a bedside vigil, or even to keep anyone company on his own will, it was definitely never on her mind for it to be Cat in the chair.

"Well, I heard from that walking, talking urinal cake that he thought some of your clothes needed be mended after you were thrown from that big screen thingie you used to be in. The seam down the side of your tank top bust and there's a rip on the front of your shorts that I sewed back together."

"Really? I never knew you could sew."

"Are you kidding me? A man with my dress sense and eye for clothing that doesn't know how to repair a wardrobe malfunction?! Give me a break! I only did it because I couldn't bare to think of you walking around with holes in your clothes; it's already painful enough that these are the only pair of woman's clothes left on board the ship!"

"So what am I wearing now?"

"That- would be a pair of stencil head's pajamas's; if you couldn't already tell by the horrible attempts at ironing the seams flat!"

"Oh. They do feel a little stiff, or for a better word, uncomfortable."

"He use's that much starch when doing his laundry, he gives the potato people a run for their money!"

Cat finally stood from his cosy spot in the chair, and stretched his legs out wide as he stepped towards Holly's bed. She suspected he had mended the rips in the time he had been on a 'watch that Holly doesn’t accidentally die' shift. He placed both her trousers and her tank top onto the bed before picking one item up at a time to fold it neatly and place it back down in a new pile, before handing it back to her.

"Here, good as new!"

"Gee, thanks Cat. How did you manage to do such a great job stitching in the dark? I don't know why the guy's set you up to a watch shift if your sitting in the darkness- you wouldn't be able to see me if something happened!"

"Well I'm a cat aren't I? Cat's work better in the dark!" Cat exclaimed with a mischievous grin on his face. What do you mean, watch shift?"

"Why would you come down here and sit with me if it wasn't for some sort of reward for doing some actual work for once?"

Cat suddenly started to fidget and fiddle with the needle and thread between his fingers, looking down at them nervously. He was about the vainest person that Holly had ever encountered! There was no possible way that she was mistaken in his ways, when the boys made it very clear to any beast, monster, alien or hologram that was unfortunate enough to mention how good Cat looked.

"I...err.. just came down to work on your clothes; my room was surprisingly 'too dark' for even me to work in, but this place was perfect."

"Oh.. okay then. Well... thank you for fixing my clothes. I think I'll try to get some more sleep now."

Cat let out a faint smile before lowering his eyes away from Holly and headed towards the doorway. Holly placed her clothing on the foot of the bed and readjusted her blankets to cover her cold shoulders as Cat finally left the room at a slow pace.

" _Lights!_ "


	3. The Quest for Food

_“ Okay Holly- this thing here- this is called a fork; and this one… is called a spoon. ” _

_“ Rimmer , I know what forks and spoons are!” _

_ “Ahh , but do you know about these? These are called-” _

_ “-knives! And if you don’t shut up they may bloody knives soon!” _

 

Holly was certain she had died and had gone to silicon hell- or just normal hell. Rimmer had brought her into the sleeping quarters, sat her at the half cleared table, and had been ‘teaching’ her about almost every single object he could find within the quarters, for 3 hours straight. Unfortunately, he had now moved on from little knick knacks around the room, to the contents of every cupboard and drawer in the kitchen.

"You realize that I am.. well was- a computer that was required to know all the contents on board this ship, right down to the 356 egg cups? I probably know things that you don't even know about this ship."

"That's not possible. When you spend as many years as I did servicing all the stupid food dispensers in this ship, you learn to take the shortest route to the next station, even if that means through restricted areas!"

"Hey, I could put you on report for that!"

"No you couldn't, I am still the highest ranking officer on board the ship, even if I am, for lack of a better word, dead."

"Number 1: Yes I could, because- Number 2: When there was still a crew on board Red Dwarf, I was the higher entity. I was depended on for power, oxygen and heat. Without me, they wouldn't have needed you to fry them all. So, in theory, I was up with the big heads of the ship, so I outrank you!"

Rimmer slouched into his seat and folded his arms with a defeated look pursed across his face. He was amendment there was so much more he needed to teach Holly before she could even become a worthy servant to all of the chores and duties that he was wayyy too busy to do himself. He was sure he was doing her a favour by deciding the next topic of discussion would be his collection of photographs of telegraph poles. She definitely needed to break her new eyes in with those classic pieces of fine art!

"Rimmer, we have been sitting here, talking about how to tie your shoes, to how often to change your underwear, for almost 3 hours! Can we talk about something I want to learn about that doesn’t involve anything to do with... I don't know- you?!"

"You want your own say in how you think you should be human?! Okay then- what do you want to know?!"

 

She really did want to change the subject of the conversation, butdidn't realize she hadn't thought beyond telling Rimmer to shut up. There was already the encyclopedia of information she had learnt from her programmers and digesting feedback from the crew, but much of it had been lost when she had turned into a humanoid, which required her to re-learn things. Like how she learned what 'smeg' was from Lister (she wished with every fiber of her being that she could delete that data from her memory altogether!) After a few minutes of silence, she finally compiled a list of questions she wanted answers too.

"So-what's it to be? The meaning of life? How to do long division?"

"If you're supposed to be the one teaching me that stuff, then I think I'll take my chances elsewhere to someone more intelligent, like- let's say- a rock!"

"Well what do you want to know, Mrs. Smarty-Pants?"

"I want to learn about emotions."

Rimmer winced and sat up with his elbows to his knees and the palms of his hands now almost glued to his face.

"What? What is wrong with emotions? You said we could talk about anything right?"

"Yes, but I'm just not all that 'in-touch' with things like that, especially when it comes to my own ."

"Would you rather teach me about the workings of the female reproductive system?-"

"NO! NO! I mean, Kryten- my good, ol' buddy Krytie- decided he would talk to you about that, preferably whenever I'm dead-er then I already am. Now, what about emotions don't you know?"

"Well, almost everything. I only knew enough to sense when there was a emergency situation in a sick crew member, or sarcasm in the captain, which wasn't always the case in the beginning. There were quite a few malfunctions in the ship's first voyage when I couldn't pick up that the captain didn't actually want me to set a direct course into the sun."

 

Rimmer sat forward again and rested his elbows on the table to steady himself. Holly was probably as interested as she was going to get in the whole time frame, even if she was learning something from Rimmer.

"Okay; I think I know how to show you all the emotions. What better way then active interpretation! I am going to act all of the emotions out for you- all 106 of them!"

"Hang on, I may not know much about it, but I don't recall there being 106; it's more like... 6!"

"Well... to the lay-man, yes. But for the truly extraordinary, like myself, there is 100 more emotions, even if I made them up!"

"I want to learn just the basics for now. No made up gobbly goop from the horrible world of 'Rimmer's prepubescent mind!'"

"There are 6 basic emotions and they're considered basic because almost everyone experiences them all in an average week. Some people even have all 6 in one day, or in Kryten's case, all in one hour. There's happiness, sadness, anger, fear, surprise and disgust."

Holly's face became puzzled as she tried to comprehend a way for Rimmer to show her all these emotions within the 10 minute time frame she gave herself before her brain  would turn to mush from boredom.

"How are you going to show me these yourself? You can't make me feel them?"

"Oh yes I can! See that chair next to you? See what's on it?"

She looked down to the end of the seat, at what looked to be a pair of Lister's dirty underwear, hanging off the edge.

"EWWW THAT'S DISGUSTING!!!"

"Got it in ONE! That you just experienced was disgust!"

"Okay, you have my attention. What's next?"

"Just another 4 hours of running through all 106 of the Rimmer emotional encyclopedia."

"You have to be smegging kidding me!" Holly exclaimed, expanding up wards from her seat. "There is no way I 'm staying for another 4 hours! I am tired and hungry... wait...you're playing with me, aren't you?"

"Yep! That was anger; you actually thought I was going to keep you here for another 4 hours? Even I can't do that- I'm running out of materials and energy!..."

Holly was relieved, slowly sinking back into her chair, that Rimmer's jab was intentional. Though she wasn't sure if she was right about his motives as he suddenly SLAMMED his fists down on the table so hard that the pile of silver cutlery accumulated beside her jumped into the air. The hologram had become cold and stone like, compared to his normally relaxed tone.

"… but if you think for ONE SECOND I don't have the authority to make you sit here and take every ounce of meaningless information that I throw, you ARE SORELY MISTAKEN!!!"

Holly jumped back completely speechless; almost falling completely out of her seat. There was a new emotion that she had never seen on any of the boys' faces before- AGGRESSION.

"Hol ... Holly are you ok?"

Her breathing had become shallow, like she had just seen a monster that had be freed from a cage after being taken from it's safe home inside a nice, warm cave. Rimmer had lost his angry facade after realising that he may have overstepped a barrier with Holly's mental capacity of taking other people's emotions.

"Holly, I really didn't mean it, honestly. I'm so sorry! It was the only way I could think of showing you what it's like to feel two emotions at once."

Something was blurring her eyes from seeing the apologetic look that had now taken over Rimmer's face. She could feel something from her eyes going down to the end of nose and jawline as she reached to wipe her damp cheek.

"What are these? What's happening to my eyes?" she whispered zoning back into the situation.

"It's ok, they're called tears. It's perfectly normal to cry when you feel scared or upset, so I guess that takes fear, surprise and sadness away from the list now too. Again, I am truly sorry about scaring you and making you cry."

Rimmer reached out and placed a sympathetic hand briefly onto her own, before pulling it away remembering he had his lucky handkerchief on hand. He removed it from his breast pocket and gave it to her, mimicking the motion of drying tears and blowing his nose.

"It's okay. I picked up that something was amiss with the way you had lashed out. I've never seen anyone that angry before, so I assumed, after the initial shock, that it was just an act."

"So... the last one is happiness-"

"What are you going to do to me now? Please don't do anything irrational again!"

"Well, it's hard because you can't force happiness; it's either there or it's not. You’re the only person that knows what will make you happy in your life as a human."

"Wow. That's probably the most insightful thing I've ever heard you say."

"And there's surprise again! Anyway, I heard you were tired and hungry, let's wrap this up- you are the only female left alive, remember! Depended on to repopulate the whole human species! Let me know if you need any help with that!"

Rimmer rose from his chair and tucked it in neatly back under the table before making for the exit, stopping halfway in his tracks.

"Let me know if you want to have another one of these fine study sessions again sometime." he retorted, passing through the sliding door.

Holly was now all alone in the dimly lit room. She felt like she had infact learnt some things from her experience with the smeghead from hell, which surprised her more than the shock of Rimmer's tantrum. Uncertain of what to do next with her day, she narrowed it down to either sleeping or eating- that was until her new body decided to signal her stomach with a loud gurgle from her tummy.

_ Okay, maybe I should try to eat something first. _

 

* * *

The room was dark, but seemingly warm. The smell of curry powder and spices that could knock any normal person out, filled the air. She was used to going into a room and raising the lights herself, but this time it toke her a brief moment before she recalled how to turn the lights on manually. As the lights began to beam on, she paced across to the counter on the far side of the room and started opening up cupboards, trying to remember where some of the pre-packaged meals Rimmer had told her about were. After  searching  for a few minutes, she found a foil packet of 'JMC Vessel- Red Dwarf: Issued- Beef Casserole', and discovered that the meal would need to be placed into a bowl & microwaved. A quick search through one of the cabinets she grabbed a bowl out of the cupboard Rimmer had labeled 'Bowl & Plates' . 

It was obvious that the boys didn't use any other appliance except for the microwave, when there was old bits of curries and stale food stuck all around the inside. She placed the bowl of cold casserole into the oven, but when her attempts at poking all of the buttons on the panel still didn't do anything, she noticed that the switch on the counter that it was plugged into, had been turned off (probably one of Rimmer's ideas to 'conserve energy'.) Reaching back, she wasn't sure what switch turned on what, but she soon heard a 'ding' and a soft hum of an appliance turning on.

 

" _HI, TALKIE TOASTER HERE! TALKIE'S THE NAME- TOASTING'S THE GAME! _ " a voice exclaimed from beside her.

As soon as it called out, she immediately recognised the voice- one of the few things from the White Hole event that all of the crew could still remember, was the constant droning of that infuriating toaster asking if...

_"WOULD YOU LIKE SOME TOAST?! _ "

Holly coldly backed out from behind the cupboards and slowly opened the sliding drawer to grab any heavy object to whack the living smeg out of the blasted toaster once and for all. She once again felt the emotion of anger when she felt nothing but the empty drawer beneath her hand, remembering the lovely meat mallet that Rimmer had forgotten to take back to kitchen. 

After a few blazing seconds of crazed thoughts, she realised she could just switch the toaster back off just as easily as she had turned him on. Heading back behind the appliances, she touched the switch that Talkie was connected to, but leaped back violently and fell onto the ground in awe after the switch shocked her and was sparking crazy until it shorted the toaster out completely, cutting the power and lights to the room. Looking down, she saw her finger wildly glitching and stinging in pain; glowing dimly in the dark room. For some reason, she assumed the action of placing the injured finger into her mouth would ease the pain, which fortunately stopped the glitching.

" _Hello?! Anyone here? _ " she muffled with the finger still shoved in her face.

Getting up, she removed the appendage and reached out her hands to feel her way across to one of the emergency lamps that had been assigned to each room, yanking the chain to turn on the lite glow across the room. Except there was no bulb in the lamp.

" _ Hello?... Really? No 'knight to come save the damsel in distress?'" _

_"Are you supposed to be some sort of princess or something, 'cause I don't see no 'glass slippers' or 'fancy dress' on you._ "

Another voice had called out from the door frame and across the room- interrupting her conversation with herself.

"Cat? Is that you? Where are you?"

"No, I am your 'knight in shining armor!'"

"How do you know I'm not in some fancy slippers or a dress then, eh'? You can't see me!"

"I thought we already had this conversation a few days ago; 'I'm a-" 

"-Cat so you can see in the dark' yes, yes. Can you hurry up and get over here so you can help me?"

"What do you mean 'get over here'?!"

 

Cat had swiftly drifted over to where Holly had been standing in the dark without her even noticing he was there, causing her to jump a foot out of her skin at the sudden voice talking next to her.

"AHHH!!! Don't do that! How did you..."

"Duhhh! I am a CAT! I would've been over here before you could spell cat!"

"Well that's great for you having night vision, but some people in this room don't, so don't sneak up on people."

"I always plan ahead!"

A quick click was all Holly heard before she was blinded by the flashlight that had been shone up from under her face. Once her eyes adjusted to the change in light, she noticed that Cat was standing ominously close with the flashlight now underneath his chin, casting a menacing shadow onto the walls.

"MWAHAHAHAHA! I AM THE ALL POWERFUL CAT GOD! Hahaha! Here, take this!"

"Oh, thank you all powerful cat god! How can I ever repay you?!"

"Some Tuna might be nice!"

"I don't think so. I can't even make a prepackaged meal with blowing the power to the room, so what makes you think I could open a can of Tuna?"

"You don’t need to do it- that's what the can openers are for, dummy!"

"All of our can openers are electric- you’re the dummy!"

"You were the ships computer for the past 3 million years, you should know how to fix a power out, or at least how to open a can!"

"I just need to go over and flick the safety switch over in that box on the wall."

"You mean this switch?"

Cat jumped over to the safety switch as fast as- well, as fast as you could spell cat- and turned the switch on again, bringing back all the power to the room.

"Yes, that switch. Thank you for that."

 

Holly walked back over to the counter where her meal was not even half prepared, unplugged Talkie, and shoved him into the bin. She then flicked the switch and powered on the microwave, and started to push the buttons, to no luck of even setting the timer on the clock. Cat signaled her to step aside, as if he was the one true master of the microwave and all its glory! He set the timer for 10 minutes and pressed start, with Holly watching curiously so she could both memorise and watch the entertaining side of a bowl of casserole spinning on a plate.

"See, it really isn't that hard you know. Just put in how long you want to cook it for and press start."

"I think I have it now; did you want some help with your Tuna fiasco?"

"No- do you really think this is the first time I have been stuck with a can of tuna and no opener? I found a manual can opener down in the supply decks one day and I save it for special tuna emergencies! I've hidden it in a super secret place so the other's won't find it- 'cause it's mine!"

"Okayyyy, no one is going to steal your can opener." Holly agreed with a chuckle at his ridiculousness. Who would want a can opener anyway?

"I'll just go get it." said Cat walking towards one of the 'bits and bobs' draws that he kept in almost all of the rooms for his 'shiny things' collection.

"Hang on... it's not in here? WHO TOOK MY CAN OPENER?!"

"Ohhhh...  I think I know what happened to it."

 

It became very clear that there was only one person who also had a use for it, but only to belittle her intelligence with it for the last 3 hours beforehand. As so on as the image of the stupid git crossed her mind, he also crossed her eyes as he walked in through the door with a box full of the kitchenware he had taken- including a nice shiny can opener sitting on the very top of the pile.

"AHHH Cat- Holly! Here is the utensils I borrowed earlier! Would you both be so kind to put everything away again?" 

Cat had definitely noticed what had been sitting in the box and had become slightly frantic, almost leaping towards Rimmer to grab it out. He pulled it from the container and shot a death glare in his direction that only a feline could pull off.

"Hey- stencil head! Next time you take something, make sure it isn't something of MINE! Or at least ASK! I could have gone hungry without this; how would I open my tuna?!"

From behind him, Cat heard a *crack* of metal that oddly sounded like an can opening. He whipped round as Holly discovered the can already had a pull ring on it. He calmly composed himself by fixing up his clothes, spun back around to face Holly once again and walked over to collect his delicious dinner.

"Okay; well, some people have better things to do than to watch their pets eat, so I'll be off."

"Yeah, you better get out of here 'cause you're starting to become a pain in my *DING*" 

"OOooo, my dinner's ready!"

 

Rimmer turned and walked back into the corridor shaking his head as Holly opened the microwave door. She went to stick her hands in to grab the bowl but was stopped by another set of hands on top of her own- but they had quilts on them?

"I wouldn't do that if I was you. That's been going for 10 minutes so it's gonna be hot; let me get it."

It didn't register to Holly straight away that it was Cat's hands that had stopped hers by grabbing them, but once it did, her body seized up like she had been shocked again, but without the electricity. Cat had noticed her unease, gently placing the bowl onto the counter and taking the oven mitts off his hands.

"Are you okay buddy? You look like you just stuck yourself in a wall socket or something?!"

"Yeah, I'm fine," she replied shaking herself into the present."It's weird, when you touched my hands with those mittens on, it made my stomach do somersaults!"

"Really? I wonder what happened?" he questioned, picking up the mittens and handing them to Holly. "Anything?"

"No- that's odd. I could have sworn it was these."

"What if someone's wearing them?"

Pulling them on again, he grabbed Holly's hands. The same thing happened as before when he was wearing them.

"Ahh yes, it just happened again!"

"What if it's not the mittens, but static electricity when I put them on?"

Pulling off the gloves, Cat grabbed her hands one final time; without any gloves on, but this time Holly's response was so strong to it, he could have sworn he felt it a little bit too.

"Woah! It must be the static from taking them on and off!"

"Yeah... that sounds right, bud."

Holly began to feel really bright in the face waiting for Cat to let go, but found she wasn't all that bothered with the confrontation. This was in fact her first experience with human physical contact after all.

"Oh!" Cat exclaimed; letting go of her hands. "Sorry, Hol. I was on a completely different planet for a moment!"

"That's okay, Cat- I didn't mind that much." 

 

A soft gurgling sound came from Holly's stomach as she glanced over to the warm bowl of casserole sitting on the bench behind them.

"I should probably eat something now though; my stomach keeps telling me to feed it. Did you want to eat with me?"

"No, cat's get very territorial with their food. I wouldn't want to mistake your intentions in sharing as trying to steal my own, but thank you for the invite!" he sighed, picking up the can of tuna and a fork from the cutlery box as he strolled towards the door.

"Thank you for helping me cook!"

"It was my pleasure- don't want you dying of starvation!" Cat called as he walked through the doorway and down into the corridor.

As she finally managed to sit down at the table and successfully stab enough meat onto her fork to be considered a bite, she stopped mid-thought. Her first experience with physical contact wasn't Cat as she had thought, but the time before when Rimmer placed a sympathetic hand on her own when she was crying! Great first memory of it now! Before she could take her first mouthful of food, she was stopped by a faint voice coming from the bin.

_"HEY! DO YOU KNOW WHAT GOES WELL WITH CASSEROLES? TOAST! _ "

An unimpressed look crossed her face as she picked up the shiny meat mallet from the box on the table and threw it across the room, clanging off the metal bin with a bang!

" _Fine- I get the point! No need for violence! _ "


	4. Stealthy Discoveries

_ "To Ganymede and Titan- yes sir, I've been around! But there ain't no place, in the whole of space, like that good ol' toddlin' town- Oh! Lunar City Seven!"   
_

" _How many times in a decade do I have to tell your small monkey brain to stop screeching that song when I am around?!"_

 

Lister hadn't even noticed Cat had slumped into the chair next to him in the sleeping quarters, until he looked up from one of Rimmer's car magazine's, whilst eating a mid-morning curry. He surely wasn't expecting the usually primped feline to be looking disheveled, still in his satin pajama's, hair in a mother of all birds nests, and the hollow's of his eyes sunken in.

"Woah- Cat, man! What happened to you?! You look..."

"I look terrible- you're allowed to say it. I am completely aware that I look like a used toilet brush!"

"No, I wasn't gonna say that- I was just gonna say it looks like you haven't gotten much sleep."

"I haven't! I've been up all night working on clothing patterns."

"Really? Haven't you got enough? There isn't anymore wardrobe space on this entire deck, and like smeg you're using mine!"

"No dummy, it's not for me..."

"Don't tell me Rimmer bribed you into making designs for new holographic uniforms?"

"No! It's not for him either!"

"Well, unless Kryten's developed an eye for flared pants or my underwear needs mending, then I'm at a crossroads!"

Kryten had given Holly a map of the route to the laundry bay so she could drop by  for any of her laundering needs ; or if she wanted a chat whilst h e worked tirelessly mending the expanding pile of Lister's underwear that had developed holes . Following the map, she took the lift down 3 levels, past the kitchen, and down into a long , windy corridor of empty sleeping quarters, until she heard muffled talking from around the corner , coming from Lister's room. She was paying more attention to following the map then listening to the quiet conversation... up unt il where it wasn't as soft.

"No, it's not for you, or them, or me- it's for Holly."

"Holly? Why are you making-"

At the call of her name, Holly quickly leaped back to hide behind the wall to avoid being seen, but still close enough to see into the room when peaking around the corner.  Learning to control her breathing when hiding, was something she had been trying to master with Lister. Listening in on Rimmer's daily pep-talks with himself 'required stealth' , and according to Lister, it was a good daily exercise either way, when he would chase them half way across the deck if they were caught!

"Shhh! You don't know who's listening!"

"Cat, you're acting smegging mental! No-one's here- and Holly doesn't have supersonic hearing!"

"Okay, okay- just keep it on the down-low!"

"So, what are 'ya making her 'eh?"

"I haven't been 'making' anything; it's all sketching and measurements and sizing and even more sketching! Women are so hard to dress!"

"But in my experience, they are extremely easy to undress! What's taken you so long though? I know you usual outfit planning: you find the materials and you go make it in less than a day!"

"I've never made anything for a woman before! There's so many things I've never had to worry about, like what the nicest colour is that will match her skin tone."

"Don't you still have to do that for yourself?"

"Are you kidding me?! As long as it isn't any sort of bodily fluid, I can pull anything off!"

"That is true man- you could even make bottle green bin bags work." From behind the doorway, Holly softly nodded in agreement.

"The majority of my problems are coming from the size."

"What, is she some alien, projecting this image that she's petite, when actually she's a huge, gelatinous blob?!"

"No! I've just never had to work with 'curves' before..."

"They're called breasts." Lister smirked, taking a bite of his curry.

Cat shyly blushed a bright pink, but Holly's location was almost compromised when his reaction made her let out a small giggle before she could trap it with her hand. Luckily it wasn't loud enough to travel into the room.

"Um.. what?"

"They're not called curves traditionally; they're called breasts. You don’t know the wonders of the female anatomy?! There's breasts on the chest, the hips, waistlines of all shapes and sizes, and of course, the bottom half is pretty amazing too!"

"Spare me the details on that, bud." Cat insisted, crossing his arms on the table to rest his head on.

"Well, a guy like you would know about that anyway."

Cat let out a small groan in an almost aggressive demeanor from his position face down in his forearms. It only took Lister's mind a few seconds- a personal record- for the information to process.

"Holy smeg- am I right in thinking you've never?-"

As soon as the words left Lister's mouth, Cat's hackles were raised, as he lifted his head high enough to death stare him down and reveal his sharp teeth, ready to attack Lister if he as so much as breathed wrong.

"Woah, relax man! I've just never seen you like this, and also there's the fact there hasn't been a woman on board Red Dwarf in 3 million years! Well, not one that you would want to get with at least. Unless you play for the opposing Zero G team..."

“Curry head- do me a favour and shut up!”

From down the hallway, Holly was still intrigued at the idea Lister had put forth. Had Cat really never been with a woman before? Someone of his variety- who was clean, unlike Lister, cool, unlike Rimmer, and unlike Kryten, was a human- well, a humanoid descendant of cross breeding. He prided himself on looking good 24/7, just in case ‘a lady was in town!’; but what if there was no ladies for him to meet?

“So, do you fancy her?”

“What?!” Cat replied, twisting his head around so his face was now in Lister’s general direction.

“Holly- Do you like her?”

“No! What\- do you think I start liking the first woman I clap my eyes on in my whole life? Give me a break…”

Holly’s chest started to thump and tighten- she wasn’t sure whether to take offense or not.

“…But let’s say I did- is it noticeable?”

“No man, not at all…”

“Really?”

“You really can’t pick up on sarcasm, can you? You’re trying harder to impress her then a fast food attendant trying to prove to himself his job will set up his future career path!”

Cat again turned his head back into his arms and groaned softly. After a brief moment, he fixed his position back up, placing his elbows onto the table, with his face resting in his hands, massaging his temples.

“Okay; say I do like her- isn’t there so inter-species astro laws against liking computers and robots? There has to be some reason why it wouldn’t work!”

“There isn’t anything like that, otherwise I would know! It would’ve come up somewhere in all of my galactic experience’s! In fact, if there was something, it would've prevented at least 50% of them! Besides, she's human now. Probably in more ways then you are!”

“So what do I do? There’s no way it would work out!”

“Sure it could- just go out and ask her to do something with you; go out for a dance and a drink of milk! I still can’t believe I have finally found something you’re not vain about!”   


“You’re sure it will work?”

“Absolutely!”

“Okay then. I’m holding you responsible if it goes wrong!”

“I’ll take that!”

Cat slowly rose up from his seat and began to toddle away from the desk, as Holly swiftly moved further down the hall away to avoid being detected.

“Thank you for the advice Lister- I’m not as great with the ladies as I make out.”

“That’s okay, Cat. We all have our faults; just go get her!”

Cat resumed his pace towards the door and down the opposite direction luckily to where Holly had been hiding. She had now started her journey back to her room, deciding the trip to the laundry can wait; preferably for when the conversation wasn’t so fresh in her mind to not tell Kryten every detail.

From inside his room, Lister was finishing the last mouthful of his curry, when his previous conversation came to mind.

 

_ Did he just call me Lister? Geez, he must have girl cooties really badly if he’s looking like that and doesn’t even manage to both insult and thank me in one sentence! _


	5. Waiting for the Night to Fall

It was 3:30am, but Holly had been wide awake for what seemed like hours. She couldn’t shake off the odd feeling she had in the pit of her stomach that started on the way back from Lister’s quarters. It was like a inflated balloon inside her rib-cage with lots of feathers floating inside it. She had tossed, turned and even flipped her pillow over to the cool side, but she didn’t end up sleeping a single wink. After 3 hours of failure, she finally gave up and let the thoughts pour out of her mouth into the dark room.

_What did Cat mean by what he said? Is to be ‘fancied’ a good thing? Oh, I just can’t make sense of it! _

Letting the thoughts loose just posed more questions then they answered. The only way to have peace would be to find the  right answers\- and at this point she only wanted them from the source. Throwing off the covers, she stretched her limbs out wide before standing up, making her way to the door and down the hallway in the direction towards Cat’s quarters.  It was eerily a lot quieter when everyone was asleep. The hallways were dimly lit using the backup computer’s energy at night. Kryten had been running all of Holly’s old drives during the day so nothing drastic would happen to them, like being directed into the nearest sun, or losing course back to earth.

The short walk came to an end when Holly was surprised to see Cat’s door still open and the lamp near his desk breaking the harshness of the dark with a soft, warm glow. Further stepping into the room, she found Cat asleep at his sewing machine, covered in a mixture of different materials and bobbles of thread. As she slowly tip toed towards him, it was obvious he too had no luck at sleeping prior to the then, as his body and its features had lost some of their luster. With another step, she accidentally kicked an accessories box on the floor, causing Cat to jolt awake.

 

“ Ahhh !” he cried. “Who’s there? Don’t you know what time it is? !”

“Cat, relax, it’s me, Holly.” 

“Holly?! What are you doing here?!” he exclaimed as he scrambled between rubbing his eyes and hiding all of his sewing materials.

“I couldn’t sleep. I thought I would check up on you- Lister said you wanted to speak to me about something.”

Holly’s logic led her to believe the only way she would get any information from him was if she threw Lister under the bus.

“I knew it- he’s a no-good weasel! What did he say?”

“He said you had something for me.”

_ This was a really big lie. _

“Oh great! It’s called a surprise for a reason! Now you know what it is!”

“No, I don’t know what you’re talking about.” 

**_ A really, really big lie. _**

“Fine- you want to see what I have been working the last 4 days on, with no sleep?!”

Walking back to his sewing machine, Cat removed the pile of material from the desk to reveal the project, still attached to the bobbin installed in the machine\- swiftly cutting it  away with the pair of scissors in his hand. He turned with the material behind his back, and headed to Holly standing in the middle of the room.

"Okay, close your eyes and hold out your arms a little."

She followed his request as Cat carefully draped a maroon shoulder coat, matching skirt and black cotton bodysuit into her forearms. As she opened her eyes, a smile spread across her face.

"Oh my goodness, Cat! Did you make all these for me?!"

"I've been working non-stop- Kryten gave me your measurements. If I did my patterns correctly, it should be a perfect fit!"

"They look amazing!"

"I thought maroon would suit you best."

Holly couldn't help but wrap her hands around the soft material, and even brought the pile of clothing into her chest to hug gently. When she looked up from her gifts, she noticed Cat had made is way to his bathroom cabinet and was fighting what looked like an unwinnable war with his matted hair, using his brush as his weapon of choice for the battle.

"I don't think you're winning that fight!"

"I know- this is what happens when I make clothes instead of brushing my hair 500 times before I go to sleep!"

"Would you like some help?"

Cat nodded and held out the hair brush towards her direction. It was an odd feeling to have- she had always wondered what his hair would feel like in it's former perfect glory, but as she started the large task of combing all the tangled ends, she realized that she would be dedicating at least 10 minutes or more to his hair. Once she had tamed his mane, it magically transformed back into it's normal silky texture that she was used to seeing- but she could now experience it in every way. How it felt, the smell of his coconut hair products, and how softly it ran through the brush.

"There, I think your locks are golden again."

She was expecting Cat to reply with a witty remark, but he only managed a quiet sigh and a small smile that creased his closed eyes as he laid back in the seat at the table.

"I know this is a weird question, but I've always wondered what you're hair feels like- could I touch it?"

"Of course; I'm surprised you didn't whilst brushing it!"

At first, it started with Holly poking the ends at the top of his should blades- then it moved to her running one finger through, until she had her whole hand combing the back of his hair. He didn't seem to mind what she was doing as he purred at the notion of having tangle free hair again- or his version of purring.

"Now it's my turn!" he said, opening his eyes and sitting up again.

"At what?"

"You're not the only curious one when it comes to hair! I want to know how soft your hair is!" Cat exclaimed, opening his eyes and standing from his seat, making his way over to Holly.

"Okay then, just don't mess it up- I just spend all that time on your hair; I don't want to have to do the same thing to mine!"

Moving closer, Cat grinned widely as he threaded his left hand through her hair.

"Just like I thought- but is the other side the same?"

Lifting his right arm up, he repeated the action on the opposite side.

"Well whadda'ya know, it's the same..."

He noticed that Holly had been staring at his movements and instinctively mimicked her gaze, resting his arm back down by his side again. The longer Holly looked into Cat's tired brown eyes, the bigger the 'balloon' feeling felt within her stomach. The brief moment was interrupted by Cat twitching himself back from his dazed look as he stepped  away from her.

"Oh... umm, I forgot about something else."

"What's that?" 

"Another surprise!" he called excitedly, travelling to his bedside dresser to pick up an odd piece of paper. "Close your eyes again and hold out your arms."

When he was certain that he couldn't be seen, his cheeky  smirk was replaced by concentration, placing the paper back before slowly pacing back to stand in front of Holly.

"Don't open your eyes." he repeated.

"I won't!"

With a deep breath, he stepped forward and weaved his arms through hers, placing his hands gently onto the small of her back. Leaning in, he met his lips on her own, pulling Holly closer into his chest. From beneath Holly's chest, her heart was erratic and her stomach was doing somersaults.

**_ WHAT?! HE'S KISSING ME! _**

Every thought at once came into their minds- ' _how do I do this? What am I doing?!_ '- but it was Cat who, with time, got the courage to apply a heavier touch in trying to absorb as much of her as possible, moving his arms to wrap around her waist for a tighter grip. Somehow this made Holly's thoughts and worries disappear, as she focused on kissing further into Cat's movements. She wrapped one arm around his neck to pull him closer, and used the other to pass through his hair once again. They were chest to chest, waist to waist- closer than they had ever been, but their bodies still wanted more. Moving her right hand down to his face, she could feel all the muscles working, moving again to his neck and then to his chest, feeling the vibration of his heart pounding loudly underneath her fingertips. There was nothing else in there minds but the moment at hand, until her hand ruined the moment.

 

A sharp jolt of pain caused them to jump away from each other, ending the embrace. As Holly looked down, the pain was caused by her hand glitching uncontrollably as she grasped it trying to soothe herself.

"What was that about?!"

"I think it's a nano-robotic glitch!"

"Whatever it was, it smegging hurt!" Cat cried, clutching his chest.

"Try being me! I'm the one glitching!"

"I was very good at trying to be a part of you before, you have to admit!"

As the glitch stopped, she shook her hand out until she noticed the mischievous smile had returned to Cat's face as he stared at her, causing them to burst out into laughter.

"Well uh... I guess thank you for the clothes, they are beautiful!"

"And thank you for the kiss. I hope it's not the last!"

"No, no- definitely not the last," she blushed. "I should probably go back to bed now."

"Yeah, I need to sleep some more too."

Walking towards the door, she was stopped by a hand on her arm.

"Just one more thing Holly..."

Cat grabbed her hands in his own and leaned in, pecking her on the cheek.

"I expect a full show of that outfit."

"Of course- anything to repay you." she replied, letting go of his hands as she retreated into the hallway.

_ You just did. _

 

* * *

 

Author's Note: I would just like to give a really big thank you to one of my best friends on tumblr @zolturates aka Kate aka 'Big Man'! She has been so supportive in helping me with this fan-fiction and has even crossed language barriers to talk to me everyday for the last month or so. Her fan-art work is absolutely-smegging-fantastic and I love her to pieces :3 

She has also created this awesome fan-art of 'Missing Software' which I adore so much, so please go and support her work <3


	6. ALERT! ALERT!

The room was dark and quiet- Kryten assumed Holly would be awake at 2:30 pm and she was elsewhere- but as he stepped through the doorway, his night vision picked up a figure sitting at the table in front of him.

_ Lights! _

The lights gave away her identity as she lifted her head and rubbed her eyes with her hands.

“Holly? What are you doing asleep at this time of day?”

“Shhh! Too loud Krytie!” she exclaimed, breaking into a mischievous smirk; her eyes still half closed.

“Have you been drinking? You seem rather cheerful.”

“No, no- of course not!" she answered, stretching her arms, yawning and then extending an arm back across the table to rest her head on.

"Just high on life!"

"So why were you asleep?"

The smirk grew larger across Holly's face as she remembered the night before.

"Oh, I couldn't sleep, so I went and visited Cat."

"Did you discuss anything interesting ma'am?"

"Oh yes!" Holly giggled into her arm. "There was a lot of things we talked about; we have more in common then I thought!"

"That's wonderful! It's good to see you making friends! I suppose he made you those clothes sitting next to you there?"

Holly jolted up to look next to her at the outfit Cat had given to her.

"YES! I almost forgot about them- I'm going to go try them on right now!"

Jumping out of her seat, she grabbed the clothes and ran into her bathroom; leaving Kryten stunned, still standing in the doorway.

"Uhhh, Miss Holly, are you okay?"

"Of course Kryten! Why wouldn't I be?" she called from the other room.

"Well, Mr Cat came to see me this morning about what happened between you two."

"So, you know what happened?"

"I'm afraid so; but don't worry, I can help you!" he replied, taking a seat at the opposite side of the table.

The bathroom door opened to reveal Holly with an excited look on her face.

"Oh ma'am, you look beautiful!"

"He did such a fantastic job! It almost makes up for ending our kiss early!" she replied, again taking her seat at the table.

Kryten's eyes widened in shock in reaction to her sentence.

"What's wrong, Kryten?"

"He told me that you had a nano-robotic glitch-"

"Oh no..."

"-and that when he went to walk towards you, you pushed him away and the glitch from your hand zapped him."

"-no! I can't believe I just told you that!"

"So, that isn't what happened?"

"Well... no it's not. He kissed me and my hand glitched ."

"I see. Either way, I brought you something to stabilize the nano-bots in your hand. It's a specially designed glove that keeps the structure of the nano's intact, eliminating almost all glitch activity."

Holding out his hand, he gestured for Holly's right hand, before retrieving the glove and slipping it over her fingers to her wrist and adjusting the fit.

"There- that should do it!"

"Thanks, but do you think if, you know, Cat and I did kiss again- would it still glitch?"

"I'm not quite sure, but I'm fairly optimistic with it being safe now; though I'm still unfamiliar with this 'kissing' action. I KNOW! I'll search my data files for examples... MY GOD, ARE THEY EATING EACH OTHER'S FACES!!!"

"No Kryten! It's what people do when they..."

"Love each other- do you love Mr Cat?" Holly backed up into her chair in surprise.

"No- no!... I mean- it takes more time then that! And more then just one kiss!"

"IT'S A REOCCURRING THING?! What else do human's need to love then? I know- I'll look up synonyms and actions that relate to kissing!"

 

 

Before Holly could scream out in defense, a violent jolt shook the ship, throwing them both from their chairs onto the ground below.

"Holly! Are you alright?!"  Kryten exclaimed, standing back up and balancing himself before helping Holly up from the floor.

"Yeah! I'm fine!"

"WHAT THE SMEG WAS THAT?!" Lister reported in over the ships speakers.

"Mr Lister, can you see anything outside?!" Kryten replied through the intercom on the wall.

"HOLY COW! THERE'S A STAR EXPLODING ABOUT 100 CLICKS EAST OF US! KRYTEN- FIND HOLLY AND MEET US ALL DOWN IN THE LANDING BAY; WE NEED TO GET THE HELL OUTTA HERE!"

"Come on, we need to go, Kryten!" Holly called, running to the door and down the hallway.

 

* * *

 

The sirens were blaring as they ran down the final corridor into the landing bay, where Starbug was parked ready to leave. They stopped halfway towards the ship when they realised the other's hadn't arrived yet.

"Why aren't they here yet? It's a lot easier and faster to get here from where they were!"

From behind Kryten, a figure appeared from the hallway.

"Kryten! Rimmer's trapped in one of the cargo decks- Lister refused to leave him behind!" Cat jogged towards them, seemingly tired from running the distance between the two locations.

"But, if he doesn't leave now, he might die! We can't leave him!" Kryten cried.

"He said for us to take Starbug and go! He and Rimmer will take Blue Midget!"

"He can't fly Blue Midget by himself! I have to go after him!"

"Kryten, you can't! Come on!" Holly yelled, as Kryten made his way towards Cat standing outside the hallway.

"I must go\- Cat, take Holly west in Starbug and wait for us!"

Cat nodded, grabbing Holly's hand and tried to pull her along, only to be met with her pulling back at his force.

"Holly, we really need to go!"

"Not without the other's!"

Taking a deep breath, he toke both of her hands in his own and met her worried gaze to his own. She wasn’t sure how he was doing it, but even though his face looked slightly panicked, his brown eyes were relaxed and gentle, looking straight into her own eyes. Without even realizing, she had moved closer to him unconsciously .

"Holly, trust me- Kryten knows what to do; they'll meet us outside, just come on!"

Holly looked behind her only to discover Kryten had already left down the corridor during their conversation.

"Okay- I trust you; let's go!"

“Of course you do!” Cat exclaimed with a mischievous wink.

He let go of her left hand and started to run in the direction of Starbug, pulling Holly along with her right hand (she was glad that the glove was proofing to work wonders).

 

* * *

"Mr Lister- Rimmer?! Sir’s?!”

Kryten had been yelling out into the corridors of the empty cargo decks, searching for any signs of the others, for at least half an hour. Walking through the doorway of the main hold, he didn't expect to see Lister and Rimmer sitting calmly at a table, arguing like school girls as per normal.

“Thank heavens I found you! We have to go- can’t you hear the alarms?!”

“Oh smeg, you’re right Kryten!- Rimmer, what’s the status of ‘Operation Kitty’?” Lister asked, only moving slightly to light the new cigarette he had taken from behind his ear.

Rimmer looked at the small television they had setup on the table in front of them at what seemed to be the CCTV feed from inside Starbug’s landing bay .

“All clear! ‘Operation Kitty’ looks to be a success!” 

“Sir, what on earth are you talking about?! We need to evacuate!”

“Alarms off!” 

The once blaring sirens, at a quick command by Lister, simply stopped their noise and panic, leaving Kryten confused, with a baffled look across his face.

“What is going on here?! Why aren’t you panicking, and how did you-”

“Okay Krytes, calm down! There was no emergency, it was a ploy Cat, Rimmer and I made up for a fake evacuation.”

“For what purpose would you need to evacuate Red Dwarf? Holly and Cat have already left! Should I call them back?”

“No, you metal trash can! This was a set up, we did it on purpose.”  Rimmer retorted.

“But why, sir?”

“Well, Cat came to us a few days ago saying he wanted to talk to Holly about something, but everyone kept barging in on him or making him feel bad about his feelings, so we set this up so he could take Holly out on a excursion.”

“You mean a date, don’t you Listy!”

“No, I mean- they aren’t together, not yet at least.”

“Why didn’t you tell me then? You would be shocked to know they have engaged in 'kissing' already, sir. A disgusting act if I do say so!” Kryten sighed.

"Oh great, the 'fantastic feline' is getting to fondle a woman! I can't even eat anything by myself anymore and he can go poke her pokey bits all he damn well pleases; I hardly see how it's fair!"

“Rimmer, shut up will you- you're lucky Rachael is still puncture free! Anyway, Cat thought you might go blab about the plan to Holly so we kept it a secret. He seems to really like her!”

“Like her? He practically worships her, except he doesn’t let her see it! I have never seen the moggy that introverted and timid about anything, like he’s afraid of her but can’t help but get drawn in like a big moth to a industrial sized bug zapper!”

“So what is he planning to do, play checkers with her until she realizes she's been jipped?” Kryten questioned.

“If it’s what I think will happen, then they are certainly not going to be playing checkers.”

“Rimmer\- shut up! It’s none of our business what happens, we just have to be there to receive the call from Starbug when they are ready to come back.”

“Alright; I was just trying to have fun.”

“The words ‘Rimmer’ and ‘fun’ don’t sit together at a picnic. Come on Kryten, let’s go find something to do.”

Lister rose from his seat, gesturing at Kryten to join him on his way back into the corridor, leaving Rimmer all alone, fiddling with the television until he finds a channel playing ‘Guess that Fascist Dictator!’.

_ Ohhh I know that one! That’s Napoleon- I met him! _


	7. Urgency

Urgency fell across Cat as he jumped into his seat, switching the engines and thrusters on. Holly had never been on Starbug as a physical being before- or outside Red Dwarf for that matter. She was familiar with everything on-board, but wasn't aware of the sheer force that pressed against her as Cat lifted the craft out of the landing bay and towards the black abyss of space, throwing her back onto the floor in the middle of the cockpit. 

"Oops- should've told you to sit down and buckle up, hey bud!" Cat cried, briefly switching to autopilot to help Holly back to her feet. 

"It might have helped to tell me that BEFORE we took off! I haven't flown outside before; I'm not used to the shakiness!" she replied, dusting the back of her skirt with the palms of her hands. 

"Oh- sorry. It doesn't matter much now, it's pretty smooth after take off; the 'fasten seat-belt's' sign have been switched off, buddy!" he remarked, helping her into Lister's seat before taking his own again. 

"Why do you keep calling me buddy? I think we are past being friends." 

"Cat's have trouble remembering names- everyone's either a bud or non-bud." 

"ARE YOU TELLING ME YOU DON'T REMEMBER MY NAME?!" 

"Of course I remember- it's just something I say out of force of habit!" 

"You're going to have to prove it to me because I don’t believe you." she smirked widely. 

"I don't have time for games, or did you forget about the exploding star, Helga?" he cried, keeping a serious demeanor until he couldn't help but laugh at the end of his sentence. 

"HELGA?! Is that the best you could think of?!" 

 

Once they hit their recommended distance away from the ship, Cat turned on the autopilot, setting a course with the directives to 'stay stationary' until 'the star finishes exploding'. 

"Do you really not remember my name?" Holly asked, looking down at her feet in the darkness. She wasn't sure if feeling disheartened was a common emotion, as the only other person she had seen wearing the same face, was Rimmer- who, thankfully, was uncommon. 

"Oh my god-" he retorted, swiveling his chair from the console to look at Holly. "-you honestly listen to that bog-bot too much!" Leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees, he grabbed her hand's in his own. 

"Your name is Holly, you are looking mighty fine for a 3 million year old, and I will never forget your name- or your face- or your voice." he finally answered, smiling shyly. 

The honesty towards her brought the butterflies back into her rib-cage, inside their cosy little balloons. She had learnt why they were there, so she wasn't worried about their presence, but worried about the face Cat was making; a combination of shocked and amazed. 

"Cat, are you okay?" 

"Of course I am- you're wearing your outfit! It looks amazing!" he replied, lifting her arms outwards so he could see her better. He seemed to be more thrilled then she ever thought he could be about anyone else, which was odd of him in itself.   

"Stand up; I want get a good look at it altogether!" 

 

Standing in the open spot in the middle of the cockpit, he twirled her around so he could see the outfit in full rotation. 

"Does it look okay?" Holly asked. 

"I think so, but you should keep spinning just in case I didn't get to see everything!" he laughed, still pushing her round by her shoulders, trying to gradually increase her speed, as they giggled like a couple of kids chasing each other.  

"Come on! I'm getting dizzy!" she cried, unable to see anything past the blur of the room turning, until everything slowed abruptly as she tripped on her footing; luckily to be caught in Cat's arms before she could hit the floor. 

"Woah! Don't fall!" he exclaimed, lifting her to meet her chest to his. After a few moments, Holly's vision stopped spinning long enough for Cat's expression of discomfort to become apparent. 

"What's wrong?" 

"Nothing, you just grazed my bruise, that's all." he replied, moving a hand to rub over the spot. 

"Is that from my hand glitching?" she asked, fidgeting her fingers together. 

"Well- yes, but Kryten said it's only a bruise; it just hurts when bumped." 

"Does it need kissing better?"  

"No, of course not!-" 

"I don't think you got my insinuation, 'buddy'." 

"-You didn't let me finish! I was gonna say, I think I might have bit my lip as well. I think that needs kissing better..." he explained, moving his hand back to her arm as he leaned closer. 

Wanting to close the distance between them faster, Holly started to mimic his movements, but the niggling feeling in her mind made her look to the glitch stabilizer on her hand, causing her to reluctantly lean away from him. 

"Hang on- what if I glitch again? I don't want to hurt you..." 

"Kissing you right now would be worth the pain." he replied, raising his hand to her face. 

"But-" 

 

Cat's lips connecting with her own in an almost hungry, aggressive way, had cut off her speech and worries from entering her thoughts in that moment. She couldn't help but to move her arms around his chest, as his hands landed in the familiar spot at her waist. Even with his intensity and passion, she could tell from the way he was still holding his weight heavily so not to fall, that he was just as nervous and excited as she was. In an effort to close the small gap between their knees and hips, she adjusted her feet between Cat's own, but the sudden presence of her upper thigh so close to him, was enough for his nerves to make him shudder, causing him to lose his balance, pulling Holly forward as he fell back into his chair. 

“Woah! Hey careful! Are you drunk or something?” Holly smirked, pushing back off his shoulders to stand back up again in front of him. 

“If this makes me drunk, then I’m still sober.” He replied pulling her back down onto his lap.  

Sitting down face to face with him for the first time gave Holly the incentive to finally wrap her arms around his shoulders to bring him closer; to kiss his neck gently. Each kiss made him arch forward into a Holly’s soft lips as she caressed his skin. The idea that he was being completely flawed by someone else and that he was allowing Holly the control of his every function and thought, was enough to make him want to swap the roles. He concentrated his mental strength towards pulling Holly away so he could look at her beautiful face again, even if only 1 minute had passed since he last saw it. 

“What’s wrong?” he asked, once again, confused. 

“Nothing’s wrong, I just wanted to see your face…” He rose his hands to cup around her face, tracing his thumbs across her flushed cheeks before kissing her again. 

“-and maybe..” he continued, tilting her neck slightly to reveal the line of clasps from her shoulder coat. One by one, he carefully unclipped them, until the coat was free to fall on the ground next to them. 

“-I would like a turn at kissing you.” 

 

He pressed his lips into the hollowness of her neck underneath her jaw, resisting the urge not to bite the delicate skin, fearing his canine's would pierce through if he tried, even with pleasurable intentions. Holly's small voice let out a tiny gasp as she unconsciously squirmed her lower half into Cat's own hips, as his lips trailed down to the small of her neck. He could sense the sudden increase to Holly's body temperature, as well as his own, but as she became more intensively restless the heavier each kiss became, the presence of a tightness became apparent to them both.  

"Lucky thing Kryten was incredibly specific about the male reproductive system, otherwise I would've been a little apprehensive about that!" Holly exclaimed, lifting Cat's blushed face back up to embrace him passionately. With each movement, the desire to feel Cat's bare skin against her own grew stronger. Unbuttoning his shirt proved to be a lot more difficult of a task when fighting against the flurry of emotions rushing through them. Wrapping his arms around her waist once again, Cat lifted Holly off of his lap as he stood from the seat, carrying all of her weight around his arms and hips. 

"Are you sure that you want to do this? I mean, I'm not really human- what if something happens?" 

"Holly, I'm not exactly straight up human either, but I won't let anything happen that I can control. I trust you with this. Do you not trust in me?" Cat reassured her, kissing her lightly on her soft cheek.  

"Of course I trust you, but I needed to check first before we took it further." 

"You needn't worry- except about making the choice: stinky's bed or preppy's bed?" 

"As much as I would 'love' to make love to you in the dump that is Lister's bunk, I think we'd be better closer to the floor, and just imagine his face when he finds out!" 

"With an offer like that I can't wait any longer!" he exclaimed, placing his lips back on her neck heavily as he carried her in the next room. 

 

Lister had been searching all over the ship for Rimmer, but wasn't expecting to find him still sitting in the main hold watching the television he had left him at hours earlier. 

"What the smeg are you still doing here?!" he asked as he walked over to the table. 

"Lister, you've got to help me! I've been stuck in an episode marathon- I've watched about 15 episodes already!" 

"How could you possibly watch 15 episodes in the 3 hours that Cat and Holly have been gone?" 

"I don't know- just do something!" 

"What am I supposed to do?!" 

"Change the channel, my whole body is numb from sitting down!" 

"Or it could be numb from you being dead?" 

"Shut up with the dead jokes and just change the channel before the 3rd season starts!" 

"Okay! Keep your kit on!" Lister snapped, pressing the button on the television to change the program; landing it on the CCTV channel broadcasting from Starbug. 

"Is this on a live broadcast?" Rimmer asked. 

"I think so, we should see the two lovebirds in a moment once the camera changes." 

 

Within a brief moment, the camera footage changed from inside the cockpit to the feed looking down on two shadows moving in Rimmer's bed in the darkness of the bunk room. 

"Well, they obviously didn't keep their kits on!" Lister smirked. 

"THAT'S MY BED! THEY'RE DOING IT IN MY BED!" Rimmer gasped wide eyed in shock. 

"Mr Rimmer? Are you okay?" Kryten's voice echoed from the hallway floated into their ears, sending them into a frenzy to switch channels again. 

"TURN IT OFF!" 

"I'm trying! It's not working!" Rimmer cried. 

Without hesitation, Lister pushed the television off the table, smashing it on the ground just as Kryten walked in. 

"Oh no! That's the 17th television you've smashed in 3 months! I'll go get the broom." Kryten announced, before turning away from their guilty faces. 

"I'm going to give that moggy a piece of my mind when he gets back!"

 


End file.
